Seeking the Middle Ground With the Homeless on Trash

By ALLAN R. GOLD

Published: November 26, 1990

Acknowledging that homeless people rummaging through garbage has become a permanent urban problem, many New York City residents are finding ways to make the best of a bad situation.

They are trying to accommodate the homeless while minimizing what many people find most objectionable: garbage spilling from ripped-open plastic bags onto the sidewalk and street.

But their successes so far appear to be the exception to the rule of frustration and dissatisfaction with a problem that residents, business owners and the city's Sanitation Department have been unable to solve. The problem appears most severe in Manhattan, the department says, although the Bronx and Brooklyn also are hard hit in places.Most often, the homeless are scavenging for beer and soda cans and bottles to return for the 5-cent deposits. Knowing this, more and more residents who do not return cans and bottles are separating them from other trash so the homeless can pick them up rather than sort through the garbage.

Other people are making deals with the homeless: I'll let you go through my garbage, but make sure you retie the bags. Such compromises are played out in an uneasy social dynamic that is forcing confrontation and cooperation among the homeless, property owners, tenants and their superintendents, restaurants and other businesses, private garbage haulers and the Sanitation Department. Where the compromises do not work -- and sometimes, even when they do -- trying to cope with trash rummaging and the fines that can result from spilled garbage is driving many New Yorkers up the wall.

"The homeless situation is absolutely out of control," said Patricia Hetkin, president of the Sanitation Council, a nonprofit organization on the Upper West Side that monitors garbage disposal.

Asked how often he finds trash in the street, Barry Fishman, managing agent for six buildings in Washington Heights in Manhattan said last week, "You can come any morning."

The burden of finding a solution falls, awkwardly, on the Sanitation Department, which is not meant to devise social policy. 'A Waste of Time'

"We certainly do not have a solution to this one," said Walter Mitchell, deputy director of the department's enforcement division.

The sanitation police can issue $50 summonses for "unauthorized removal of refuse," but with the homeless, it is a waste of time, Mr. Mitchell said.

"We don't want to be arresting the home less," he said. "We tell them, move on and do not touch it again."

For many of the homeless, picking through garbage for returnable containers is a primary source of income. Some homeless people even view their work as contributing to the city's recycling program. New York State introduced returnable containers in 1983 to reduce waste and litter, but in the city, 45 percent of returnable containers were thrown away in 1989, a state commission reported earlier this year.

Butch Hansen, who said he has been living on and off the streets for the last year, recounted meeting a woman on Lexington Avenue and 60th Street as he rummaged through some trash.

" 'How disgusting. How can you go through a garbage can?' " Mr. Hansen said that the woman told him, and that he responded: "I took a $5 bill out and threw it on a garbage bag. If you saw that on the street, would you pick it up? That's $5 for me in this can and in the can down there."

Some homeless people said that they were careful about going through garbage, and that crack addicts were the ones who ripped bags. A nonprofit business called We Can, formed in October 1987 to give the homeless a place to bring returnables for money, takes a dim view of ripping, said Mark Barreiro, the development director. 'Make Sure You Tie Them Up'

Mr. Barreiro said the homeless people who redeem containers have been told the program will end if complaints are brought to We Can's attention, and as a result, a "code of honor" has developed among them. In good weather, 400 to 500 people will return bottles and cans each day to the operations in Manhattan at 52d Street and 11th Avenue and at 207th Street and Ninth Avenue.

Because Mr. Hansen is conscientious, "the places I go know when I've been there," he said. He collects bottles mostly, which other homeless people shun because of their weight, he said. Because they tend to end up at the bottom of garbage bags, he slits them at the bottom, removes the returnables and reties the slit bottoms, Mr. Hansen said.

Jerry Stuck, another homeless man, said, "You want to make sure you tie them up so the garbage doesn't go out." A friend of his, Kenneth Griffin, said, "The people don't appreciate that."

Property and store owners become irate over fines they say they get for loose rubbish caused by the homeless. Transparent Bags as a Solution

"It's amazing to have to pay for the privilege of having your garbage opened up," said Dan Margulies, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, which represents 2,500 apartment building owners.

Some people have thrown up their hands. Among those who have not, the most widespread approach seems to be separating returnable bottles and cans.

On West 48th Street, between Ninth and 10th Avenues, some people put out returnables in bags and hang them on gates in front of their homes, said Joe Rider, a resident.

A cooperative apartment at 110 Riverside Avenue has started using transparent bags, said a resident, Mary Ann Rothman. This allows the homeless to see what is inside. But many people object to the bags because, they say, they are unsightly. Could Recycling Help?

Sanitation Department officials favor transparent bags because they help the city's recycling program. The recycling law permits the city to order apartment buildings with nine or more units to use transparent bags.

Superintendents throughout the city are developing a rapport with street people and letting them go through the garbage with the understanding that they retie the bags. Mr. Fishman said that on a recent visit to one of his buildings, he found a woman rooting through the garbage. He asked the superintendent about it, who said he knew her and had agreed that she could look through the garbage as long as she was neat.

Some people believe the city's recycling program could solve the problem. Maria Soto, manager of the business improvement district between 96th and 110th Streets in Manhattan and an Upper West Side resident, said there have been fewer torn garbage bags since separation of metal and glass became mandatory in the neighborhood.

Many homeless people now go through the blue recycling pails in search of returnable cans and bottles.

Mr. Griffin, a homeless man, said he is one of those.

"That's my little secret," he said.

Photo: Some New York City residents are trying to accommodate the homeless by separating beer and soda cans and bottles, which are redeemable for cash, from the rest of the trash. A bag of bottles was hung near the garbage outside 411 West 48th Street in Manhattan. (William E. Sauro/The New York Times) (pg. B5)